Jokowi Prepares IDR 493 Trillion To Overcome Poverty Next Year

President Jokowi's State Speech During the MPR Annual Session (Photo: Youtube Setpres screenshot)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) wants extreme poverty in the country to be abolished next year. To make this happen, Jokowi has prepared a social protection budget of Rp493.5 trillion next year.

The budget will be used to perfect social protection throughout life and adaptively. Then, it is also prepared to improve the registration data for recipients of social assistance (bansos).

"To accelerate poverty reduction and improve welfare, as well as long-term human resource development to break the chain of poverty, the social protection budget is allocated Rp493.5 trillion," said Jokowi in delivering the 2024 RAPBN at the DPR Building, Parliament Complex, Senayan, Jakarta, Wednesday, August 16.

Jokowi said the reform of the social protection program was directed at improving social protection throughout life and adaptive, subsidies on target and based on target beneficiaries.

"Improving the recipient database includes, among other things, strengthening the socio-economic registration data," he said.

On this occasion, Jokowi mentioned extreme poverty. He said, now it has been successfully reduced below 2 percent.

"Extreme poverty fell from 2.04 percent in March 2022 to 1.12 percent in March 2023," he said.

The poverty rate also fell to 9.36 percent in March 2023, from a peak of up to 10.19 percent in September 2021. The unemployment rate also managed to fall to 5.45 percent in February 2023, from 6.26 percent in 2021.